


The Morning After

by Wonko



Category: Holby City
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Ficlet, Gift Fic, Hangover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonko/pseuds/Wonko
Summary: A ficlet for @fortytworedvines' birthday. The morning after Bernie's night before.
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 77





	The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fortytworedvines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortytworedvines/gifts).



> I wasn't gonna put this on AO3 but what the heck. Short and sweet and all that.

Bernie returned to consciousness like a bear that had just been roused from a season long hibernation by a hunter poking it in the eye with a sharp stick. She rolled over and pressed her face into the pillow, groaning from somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach. She was actually pretty sure she could feel the vibrations from it giving her core muscles a minor workout.

“Hey, you’re finally awake.”

She twitched, unable to immediately place the male voice that had spoken.

“You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us and that thief over there.”

_What the fu-_ her mind helpfully supplied, and then she rolled over and forced one eye open with the mental equivalent of a heavy duty crowbar.

“Jason,” she husked through a throat of broken glass and splinters. “What are you talking about?”

Jason’s eyes glinted. “Nothing. Are you getting up now?”

Bernie groaned again, pulling the pillow up over her face. “Why are you in my bedroom?” she said, her voice muffled by a layer of cotton and goose feathers.

“Auntie Serena asked me to sit with you to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit. Shall I tell her you’re up now?”

She counted to ten before she answered, then sighed deeply. “I suppose so. What time is it?”

“Just before eleven,” Jason supplied as he headed for the door. “I think Auntie Serena’s making you breakfast.”

Bernie didn’t think she’d ever wanted to eat less in her entire life. Oh God. What the hell had she been up to?

She remembered dressing for Dom’s stag party. That much was clear. She’d bought a new waistcoat - Serena had been suitably appreciative - and cufflinks. The theme for the evening was classic style, and she’d wanted to make an effort. 

She was pretty sure she’d turned up at Albie’s on time, though that was only step one on their agenda. Someone had had the bright idea of doing an A-Z of Holby’s pubs, and by the time they’d reached G - the somewhat unsubtly named _Gay Gordons_ \- there were already some impressive gaps in her memory.

Serena looked up as she trudged into the kitchen, her lips quirking in a wholly unsympathetic smile. “You look like someone dragged you through a hedge backwards.”

“Definitely sideways, actually,” Bernie muttered in reply, slumping into a chair and arranging her limbs into an awkward gordian knot that she insisted was comfortable.

“You poor, poor lamb,” Serena said, with less sincerity than a Tory politician giving a speech about welfare. “I’m making you a bacon roll, not that you deserve it.”

Bernie blinked against the vicious light. “Why? What did I do?”

Serena pointedly glanced at the console table by the door to the living room, upon which the landline phone and its blinking red answerphone light rested. “Why don’t you have a little listen for yourself.”

Feeling like a prisoner leaving their death row cell for the final time, Bernie gingerly pressed the button.

_You have twelve new messages!_ The machine’s chirpy robot voice intoned, and Bernie groaned again. _Message 1: left yesterday at 11.27pm._

The sounds of a rowdy pub blared into life and Bernie instinctively covered her ears. “ _Ser-eeeeeeeeee-na,”_ her own voice warbled, only slightly muffled by her desperate attempts to block it out. “ _Ser-eeeeeeeee-na, pick up the phone.”_ More pub noises filled the silence, as well as various yells and screeches from Bernie’s companions. “ _Serena, I bloody love you, you know,”_ drunk Bernie slurred from the past. “ _You’re such a fantabulous- fabtastic-...fabulously fantastic woman.”_ Her past self rounded this eloquence off with a belch.

“Oh God, Serena, I’m so sorry,” Bernie began, but Serena cut her off.

“Oh, it gets better.”

Bernie listened, with slowly building horror, as the rest of the messages played out. Some were short and bizarre, and some were long and incomprehensible, but all were hideously embarrassing. She couldn’t quite decide whether she was more mortified by the recording of her rambling on about how Dom’s fiancé Pete was much better for him than that “ _lanky streak of piss_ ” Lofty (Bernie had never forgiven him for breaking Dom’s heart) or if her extremely off key serenade was the worst part.

(🎶 _Ser-eeeeee-na, you're breaking my heart_

_You're shaking my confidence daily_

_Oh, Serena, I'm down on my knees_

_I_ _'m begging you please to come home 🎶_ )

“Kill me,” she muttered as the last message bleeped to an end. “If you ever loved me, kill me now.”

“No, shan’t,” Serena said archly, and she presented Bernie with a plate containing a bacon roll with the bacon just the right side of burnt, and a glass of something orange and gently fizzing.

“What’s this?” Bernie asked, regarding the drink dubiously.

“Irn Bru,” Serena replied. “My Scottish cousins swear by it. Best hangover cure there is.”

The taste was like nothing she could adequately describe. She swirled it round in her mouth for a minute, tasting it like wine. It was a very confusing drink, and eventually she decided that it tasted ‘orange.’ Not like oranges the fruit; like orange the colour.

And the strangest thing was, it worked.

Feeling a bit more human after eating and drinking, Bernie loaded her plate into the dishwasher and wrapped her arms around Serena’s waist. “I’m sorry about last night, love,” she whispered into her ear before dropping a kiss onto her shoulder. “Let me make it up to you.”

Serena smiled. “Well. I distinctly remember you promising to get _down on your knees_.”

Bernie grinned. “I can do that...” she murmured. “With pleasure...”


End file.
